


Unlucky

by mssrj_335



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Caring Benny, Emotionally Repressed Dean, Longing, M/M, Past Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester, Past Relationship(s), Post-Purgatory, Soft Benny, anti-valentine's, fuuuuuuuuuuu, no trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10028171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssrj_335/pseuds/mssrj_335
Summary: Written for spnrarepair creation.  Prompt: You know, there's a thousand bars.  How unlucky am I that you came to mine?Post purgatory, when Dean ends up in Benny's bar after a bad hunt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> self-edited waaaaay too late at night. if you see something, give a shout

Benny could smell it, all the way outside in the cold February air.  Even before he saw the telltale spatter weaving across the ground.  

 

The front door was locked, all the lights dimmed except those just above the bar.  The only way someone could have entered the building was through the door he’d left locked as he took out the trash.  What surprised him more than anything was not presence of the blood.  Nor was it the fact that the blood’s producer had managed to sneak in past him.  

 

No.  What surprised him most was the smell.  

 

He’d never _forget_ it, but it surprised him to smell it in the material plane and not in hot, fevered dreams.  Benny wanted to rush, drop the trash in his hand and sprint inside to take care of…the problem.  

 

But he knew better.  He knew from experience that rushing in on the originator of the aroma was fatal, even if he was injured.   

 

Benny walked normally back from the dumpster to his shop and locked the door behind him.  The smell within was stronger than it was without.  He felt the press of his fangs against his gums, aching for a bite.  Luckily, he was well fed and a little bitter.  Resisting now wasn’t as hard as it might have been some years ago.  

 

Surreptitiously, Benny followed the trail of blood that pattered the floor.  The small bar kitchen was empty and the smell wasn’t as strong here as it was out on the main floor.  He grabbed a rag and made like the glasses he’d already polished at the bar were still dirty.  Carefully, he looked around.  The fragrance drifted on boozy air down from the second floor.

 

The office and a reserve first aid kit were up there, accessible by ladder from the end of the bar.  Benny swallowed.  Blood was pooled slightly at the bottom of the ladder where the intruder seemed to have had to pause for a moment.  Benny figured the time for being cautious was drawing short.  If he was losing that much blood, he might be in worse shape than Benny’d first thought.  Slowly, he ascended, every step inviting the copper tang into his lungs.  He peered over the top of the stairs.

 

The blade of a knife buried itself where his head had been and Benny sucked his teeth.

 

“ _Dean_ , you jackass,” he called from the ladder.

 

Benny heard a sharp intake of breath, then Dean’s rasping voice.  “Benny?  That you?”

 

Benny let out a soft huff.  “It’s me, chief.  I’m comin’ on up now.”  He paused for just a moment.  Then, step over step, he pulled the hunter into view.

 

 _Jesus_. 

 

Dean sat sprawled between the joint of the wall and the edge of Benny’s desk.  Blood had seeped into the top of his jeans and through the middle of his shirt and jacket.  From the smell of it, Benny figured he’d been hit hours ago, bleeding slow enough to stay alive, just enough to take the fight out.  Benny’s heart clenched but he approached slowly still.  A wounded Winchester was still lethal, even if it was an old friend coming close.  Dean shuffled a little when Benny got near, but if he had any thoughts, he kept them to himself, stowed behind the tight grimace of his lips.  

 

“How the hell’d you get here, Dean?” Benny sighed.  “Ya look like roadkill.”

 

Dean grimaced.  “Just a hunt, nothin’ more.  Got a tip about some werewolves down this way.”

 

“Uh huh, and you just decided to drop in for a cuppa tea?”

 

Dean’s lip curled in a familiar way but he didn’t say anything more.  It was still an unspoken understanding, even after so many years, that Dean had a shoulder to lean on.

 

Benny crouched in front of Dean.  “Can I touch ya?” he asked, softly.

 

Dean nodded, perhaps more forcefully than he should have.  Benny caught a whiff of fresh blood seep through Dean’s ragged shirt.  He pulled back the fabric and the hunter hissed.

 

“I ain’t fine china,” Dean groaned, “but take it easy, huh?”

 

Benny chanced a glance at Dean’s face, noting the fine lines that had started gathering at the corners of his eyes and mouth.  His lips were chapped.  Benny turned his attention back to Dean’s gut wound.  Three long lines cut into the muscle but not deep enough to cause serious injury.  Benny could patch it quick, but not here.  The hunter hissed again when Benny slipped an arm under his and hauled him to his feet.

 

“C’mon, chief,” Benny murmured.  “Let’s get you home.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Benny hauled Dean into his car and laid him up on the shabby couch in his living room, the man was groaning and bitching up a storm.

 

“Jesus _christ_ , Benny, take it easy will ya?”

 

“Calm down now, we ain’t even at the hard part yet,” Benny replied with a grimace.

 

He left Dean on the couch and padded quickly to the medicine cabinet.  There wasn’t much in the way of anesthetic except a few tubes of oral numbing gel and a lot of whisky.  Benny grabbed both, some iodine, and his stitch kit.  He’d learned a long time ago that it was better to be over-prepared when dealing with the Winchesters.  

 

With a quick rub of gel, he edged the tears in Dean’s skin.  Then, he handed Dean the bottle.  The hunter took a long pull and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

 

“So…”

 

There it was.  Benny frowned.  “So?”

 

“You uh, doin’ ok?”

 

Benny could’ve laughed at Dean’s question, but he didn’t.  It wasn’t that he didn’t understand Dean’s reason for calling the end of the line.  It wasn’t even that he really resented him for it.  What he resented was the loneliness.  And it was never worse than now.  Goddamn Valentine’s Day. 

 

“ **You know, there’s a thousand bars. How unlucky am I that you came to mine?** ” Benny said softly.  

 

Dean’s eyebrows scrunched angrily.  “Hey, it’s not like I asked to be sliced and diced on your doorstep,” he sneered.  

 

“I didn’t mean it like—”

 

Dean struggled to sit up.  “No, I get it—”

 

Benny put a firm hand on his shoulder.  “Dean, c’mon now.  Settle down and let me take care of this.”  He ran a soothing thumb over Dean’s collarbone, trying to gather his thoughts.  “It’s just…when I’m finally startin’ to forget, you always find a way to…bring back memories.”

 

Dean had the good grace to look ashamed.  He stared at a spot on the floor for a moment while Benny threaded the needle.

 

“Look…for what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Dean murmured.  “I did you wrong.  And I couldn’t be more sorry…”

 

Benny held Dean’s eyes.  

 

He hadn’t forgotten what they’d shared in the damp, dank woods of Purgatory and neither had Dean.  Benny would dream it sometimes, wake sticky and flushed at the thought only to realize that it had been five years since he’d heard from Dean after their final goodbye. 

 

He wondered if Dean did the same.  The hunter took another long swallow from the bottle as Benny tied the last knot on the line.

 

“Grit yer teeth, cher.”

 

Benny’s hands screeched to a halt just inches above Dean’s skin.  The epithet had betrayed him.  To any other human, Dean would’ve remained the same.  But Benny could taste the change on the air.  A spike, a new note in the coppery scent of blood.  Want.

 

Benny cleared his throat and started the stitches.  Dean groaned loudly, gasping and growling and grunting through the pain.

 

Benny hummed sympathetically.  “This ain’t exactly my best valentine.  Hold on now, almost done.”

 

“So you’re tellin’ me I don’t get roses and chocolate?” 

 

“You wanna try tellin’ them poor clerks why I’m covered in blood?”

 

Dean didn’t answer; he only groaned.

 

“Nah, I didn’ think so,” Benny replied.  He neatly tied a knot in the last stitch and sat back.  

 

He left the hunter to lay panting for only a minute.  When he returned, he cleaned and dressed the stitches as best he could.  

 

“Rest easy, now, Dean,” he murmured.  “I gotcha, cher.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Dean awoke the next morning, Benny made sure he had plenty of water to drink.  Dean had managed to get himself to sit up straight, though Benny was sure that it hurt like a son of a bitch.  When Dean’d had his fill, he sat quiet for a while, first sending a quick text, scribbling something on a note.  Then, watching Benny work around the house.  He stood, absently washing dishes, when he heard Dean approach next.

 

Though he was tempted to turn, he waited.  Dean had never been the best talking type and Benny had the sense that there was something he was building up to.  

 

“I—”

 

So he wasn’t wrong.  Benny waited a moment more.  He didn’t dare look at Dean for fear of scaring him off.  Dean cleared his throat.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Damn, it was gone.  Whatever he’d wanted to say had deserted him.  

 

“I gotta get goin’,” Dean muttered.  “But I owe you one.  A big one, Benny.”

 

Benny could feel his shoulders sag just slightly but he turned to look at Dean anyway.  He smiled sadly at the defeated look he saw there.  

 

“No problem, chief.”

 

That seemed to seal it.  The subtle tenderness in Dean’s body fled, replaced with the familiar hard edges that Benny knew best.  Dean walked past him, put a hand on his shoulder.

 

“I left my number.  Call any time.”

 

Just like that, Benny felt himself get sucked back in.  He knew that he’d call Dean, even if he didn’t need help.  He knew he’d call just to hear him say _something_.  And he couldn’t help but feel that his heart walked out the door with Dean, tucked in his back pocket.


End file.
